New Orleans The talking heads, the pollsters and pundits, and political reporters for the largest national newspapers, and one distinguished contributing editor after another have finally come to a consensus that this Donald Trump – Ted Cruz hater machine resonates with the red meat part of their base, and, worse, and these mad dogs want to be fed, rather than taken for granted by Wall Street, big donors, and the party establishment. They may not agree on what it takes to glue the pieces of their Humpty-Dumpty back together again or if that is even possible, but they at least agree that it’s broken, and there is now a class divide in their largely stale and pale base that they can’t just paper over and ignore.
Trump and Cruz and the fact that they are not fading away, even if they may have capped out on the growth of their base, spells trouble for all of the Republican establishment candidates and could put one of these mean boys in the final vote for President. A former Bush speechwriter and now senior writer for The Atlantic magazine in a recent issue makes the case that the establishment most critically misjudged the depth of antipathy the lower and moderate income part of their base, essential to their success in the West and South, feels about immigration reform. He argues that the megadomes in the wake of their defeat in 2012 thought all they needed to do was soften their hate speech around immigration reform and adopt the Jeb Bush “not soon, but someday” supporting immigrants and a path of legalization. Marco Rubio has recanted any role in immigration reform under the new calculus and Cruz and Trump want to go past security and engage in mass deportations. This is all very bad news and argues poorly for immigration reform in a Republican Congress, even if a Democrat is successful, and, friends and neighbors, not matter what you read, that’s never a sure thing!
On the other hand, the Trump base which is rebelling against the Republican establishment wants to protect Medicare, wants more guarantees that trade doesn’t mean the loss of good jobs, and wants to make more money from the jobs they have. None of this will make Wall Street, the donors, or the corporate chieftains and Old Guard of the GOP happy, but perhaps there is a silver lining that might bring some dividends to the rest of us for a change in a Congressional compromise.
More job protections for trade would win applause across both sides the aisle, if some of the elephants come heavy footing in our direction. There probably isn’t a groundswell for $15 per hour, but after more than an 8-year drought on raising the minimum wage, how can Republicans not deliver a real raise in 2017 for their base and ours? The rebels in their base are also clear that they aren’t crazy enough about their guns to want to fire them up on another war in the Middle East or anywhere else, and we can probably all agree on that as well. Protecting Social Security and Medicare are also issues where we could make progress, and for all of the storm and fury about Obamacare, the working class part of this radical, rebel horde is not willing to die hard without health care.
The radicals in the conservative’s working class base are being clear in the Republican primary finally and are saying they want theirs, too. Some of what they want meshes with some of what we want, and there might be some deals to be made on some issues, even if we have some mountains to climb on others in 2017.